Ohio State Board of Education President Debe Terhar is kind of irritated that everyone thinks she was comparing President Obama to Hitler when she posted a picture of Hitler on Facebook with a comment about how Obama is coming for your guns.

I mean, you post one Facebook message with a picture of Hitler, and a made-up Hitler quote, and everyone gets all uptight.

https://www.balloon-juice.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/balloon_juice_header_logo_grey.jpg00Imani Gandy (ABL)https://www.balloon-juice.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/balloon_juice_header_logo_grey.jpgImani Gandy (ABL)2013-01-22 15:15:492013-01-22 15:21:13Ohio State Board of Education President Says She Wasn't Comparing Obama to Hitler When She Compared Obama to Hitler

What an amazingly complete lack of grasp of history. I’m assuming she’s a Glenn Beck graduate. The founders’ ‘well regulated militia’ was to defend the US government, not attack it. Hitler didn’t say that and didn’t disarm his own people. Weapon control laws have featured heavily throughout history, including in the US, for a variety of reasons and have no special link to establishing tyrannies. She’s regurgitating lies wholesale and pretending she’s the one thinking. Wow.

You know, I remember the Clinton presidency pretty well. The Republicans were assholes, and there was muttering like this. It was confined to, practically defined the lunatic fringe. Now it’s the conservative mainstream. Something must have happened to make a whole lot of people panic and grope for explanations they wouldn’t be ashamed to say out loud. I wonder what that was?

But she does say we “need to step back and think about it and look at history” to see that tyrants have disarmed their citizens.

Some of them have. Some of them haven’t. What those that did take away guns all had in common was that they had already seized power. Taking away anyone’s guns was the consequence of tyranny, not its cause. The fight for liberty had already been lost.

The example I love the best is Stalin. We’re supposed to believe that if there had been an armed citizenry he would never have come to power. As if Russia wasn’t awash in firepower during the civil war era. Lack of guns wasn’t why the Whites lost; the lack of any sort of political program that appealed to the masses was more their problem/

What’s the true intention of the Second Amendment? It was to protect us from a tyrannical government, God forbid.”

If you actually believe this is tyranny and that’s the purpose of the 2nd amendment, then shut up, grab your gun and start shooting federal officials, or was Tim McVeigh the only right winger willing to follow through with action?

And if you’re not willing to be the next McVeigh, then stop lying about calling this tyranny or whether the 2nd amendment exists for this purpose.

The founders’ ‘well regulated militia’ was to defend the US government, not attack it.

More specifically, it was to defend the country without requiring a large standing army, which many of the founders felt was the real danger to liberty. Somehow the point about avoiding a large standing army doesn’t seem to have soaked in, since the same party that is all in on the importance of the Second Amendment in protecting liberty also believes that we aren’t spending enough on our military.

@trollhattan: I don’t think she’s vacationing on the edge anymore, I think she posted her change of address card pretty publically. Far far far from shunning it. Geocode her on googlemaps and she’s surrounded by blue, the only question is if it’s atmospheric or oceanic.

The quote in question ascribed to Hitler has long been used in gun rights circles to satisfy Godwin’s Law when entering in debate with gun control advocates. It was repurposed on a graphic that Debe apparently posted and shared with her friends:

Never forget what this tyrant said: ‘To conquer a nation, first disarm its citizens.’ — Adolf Hitler.

Ohio State Board of Education President Debe Terhar is kind of irritated that everyone thinks she was comparing President Obama to Hitler when she posted a picture of Hitler on Facebook with a comment about how Obama is coming for your guns.

Just what the fuck WERE you trying to say then, jackass? I mean, I make no bones about the fact that I consider comparisons between the Bush administration and Hitler appropriate, being that, you know, the Bushies were responsible for practices that were considered sufficient to incriminate surviving Nazis as war criminals.

Are you saying that, in fact, a similar comparison can be made because Obama behaved like Hitler in this or that way? Then fucking say so. Don’t just post a picture of the Fuhrer and then backtrack immediately saying “no no no I didn’t MEAN anything by it.”

The Republicans were assholes, and there was muttering like this. It was confined to, practically defined the lunatic fringe. Now it’s the conservative mainstream.

Welcome to the internet. It allows everyone who thinks that Timothy Hutton is an alien queen sent here to train the populace to destroy Capitalism to gather in one “place” and organize. Given that, I’m not surprised by the mainstreaming of more typical paranoia about the how Angry Black Man is going to take away all your phallic symbols before herding you into the FEMA camps.

I’m repeating myself on this point. But I’m always amazed to hear some Americans insist that they have a constitutional right to arm themselves for rebellion against the state, i.e. for treason. That’s so blatantly absurd, I don’t know how they can say it with a straight face.

But I’m always amazed to hear some Americans insist that they have a constitutional right to arm themselves for rebellion against the state, i.e. for treason. That’s so blatantly absurd, I don’t know how they can say it with a straight face.

It is justified by suggesting treason is okay in the face of tyranny, even though tyranny isn’t mentioned in the second amendment and cannot be specifically defined for the purposes of rebellion.

In short, the whole tyranny-treason-rebellion-guns nonsense is a huge, rightwing escapist fantasy.

It is even dumber than most people realize. The “well regulated militia” clause was specific to pacify the slave states. The states in those days maintained a well-regulated militia of white people to keep down slave rebellions. Everyone was *required* to serve in these militias and maintain firearms and come to the service of the State in the event of a slave uprising.

You were supposed to be part of the citizens’ army to DEFEND the state and maintain it’s tyranny. It was against the law not to be armed and ready to answer the call to put the oppressed back in chains.

@Amir Khalid: Because they are stupid. As Carlin said, assuming you are exactly average, then half the people you meet are dumber than you. Since I don’t think of myself as particularly sharp on most days, THAT thought is a bit scary. ;)

If you actually believe this is tyranny and that’s the purpose of the 2nd amendment, then shut up, grab your gun and start shooting federal officials, or was Tim McVeigh the only right winger willing to follow through with action?

@👽 Martin: Pretty much. I deal with the “Obama is a tyrant” crowd on a daily basis through work, and if any of them forget, or weren’t told, that I’m the token libtard and start spewing that “Obama is a tyrant” shit then I call them on it right then and there. You have a gun, right? The government’s tyrannical, right? What the fuck are you waiting for? Start shooting before it’s too late!

(hemhawhemhawhemhaw)

What, was McVeigh the only conservative with principles?

(explosion of rage, McVeigh wasn’t a conservative, he was a terrorist, blah blah blah)

Really? He thought the government had crossed the line into dictatorship. He acted. What’s your excuse?

I’m repeating myself on this point. But I’m always amazed to hear some Americans insist that they have a constitutional right to arm themselves for rebellion against the state, i.e. for treason. That’s so blatantly absurd, I don’t know how they can say it with a straight face.

Think about like the 21st century mutation of the Southern romanticism of the antebellum South and why they decided to dig in and fight such a bloody Civil War, rather than accept limits to the spread of slavery.

In short, Southerners after losing the Civil War created a revised history about fighting to “protect their way of life”, their “unique culture”, and how the Negroes were happy, contented, and well cared for as slaves and the Confederate States were just standing up to Northern bullying regarding raising tariffs to pay for internal improvements.

Therefore the Civil War was fought to limit Northern tyranny against the South and in some parts of the USA the Civil War has been dubbed “the war of Northern Aggression”.

The romantic mindset of fighting your own government as being deserving of anything other than being tried for treason, I think, derives from generations of white Southerners romanticizing the causes of the Civil War and the antebellum South.

This mindset of the Noble resistance to Tyranny, I think sort of seeped into the greater culture as people moved out West, after the Civil War and eventually, via media access, penetrated pockets of folks in the North.

she should have said, “the nigger is going to take our guns away”. Honest dislike for African Americans and delusional paranoia. There is also the inability to read and understand the proposals the President is putting forth. She certainly is in the right job, should be easy for her to get educated enough to understand said proposals.

Actually, in America attacking the government isn’t treason unless a foreign power is also involved. That’s part of why little Timmy McVeigh wasn’t charged with treason when he blew up a federal building in Oklahoma. It was home-grown republican terrorism, not foreign-sponsored terrorism, and so was just murder on a grand scale. Definition is in the the constitution, and two witnesses are required, too.

There’s also some intriguing parallels between the pro-slavers and the gun nuts in terms of trying to suppress opposing views. The slavers had their gag clauses; the gun nuts have their “no federal government research on public health effects of gun ownership” statutes. I’m pretty sure there are more examples.

Lack of guns wasn’t why the Whites lost; the lack of any sort of political program that appealed to the masses was more their problem

This mirrors my take on the matter. Guns are neither necessary nor sufficient for resisting tyranny. By which I mean: if you’re sufficiently politically strong, you’ll be able to seize weaponry even if you start out with none. And if you’re not political strong, your cause is hopeless anyways.

Another point (admittedly commonly made)—it’s by now conventional wisdom (don’t have time to check validity), but ostensibly Iraq was awash with citizens possessing guns, and that didn’t go a great ways towards deposing Saddam.

@Ash Can: You see in many locales, certainly here in NY State, people use the run for the school board (which really usually only involves having all your friends & relatives come out & vote) to launch their prospective political careers. To me, one of the biggest problems with our schools is that too many who are responsible for decision making have little knowledge of education and perhaps no real interest in acquiring any. Not all certainly but too many.